Tag Archives: nonprofit

Your brand is your company’s control center, or what we like at TREW to call “the brain.” It is the collective set of experiences over many years that shape who your company is and its unique value proposition. In marketing terms, your brand is personified both visually – through your company logo and branding styleguide – and contextually – through words, such as your mission, vision, and positioning statements; core company and product-level messaging; and company and campaign taglines.

To position a company, both visually and contextually, it’s important to first know about the company’s heart. What is the company and its team uniquely passionate about and capable of delivering that no other company can? This requires a lot of listening – in person, via research, and persistent studying.

For The Hogg Foundation, TREW conducted an in-depth market research project, focused on internal leadership and staff, as well as external groups of stakeholders and consumers.

Market research included:

21 hours of qualitative in-person interviews with all staff

Over 800 external quantitative online surveys

Research analysis and findings

Following this market research, TREW Marketing gained honest stakeholder insights that led to recommendations for branding, messaging, and communications.

Starmount, a retail software solutions provider was undergoing an entire brand redesign, and partnered with TREW to develop core branding elements, including mission, vision and positioning statements; tagline concepts; and company and product-level core messaging. The TREW team worked closely with company business, technical and marketing leadership and conducted qualitative competitive analysis over several months to understand Starmount’s unique value proposition in a highly competitive retail software marketplace.

Alfamation, a test and measurement solutions provider, selected TREW to manage their rebranding efforts by crafting their “brain,” including company logo and brand guidelines; product logo creation; creative guidance for software, hardware packaging; core company and product level positioning and messaging; and mission statement and tagline. TREW began this process by interviewing company business and sales leaders and key partners as well as studying the competitive landscape and market opportunities.

Listen Actively and Patiently

Choosing words in branding statements is a slow, methodical, creative and patient process. For the Hogg Foundation, through our deliberate process, a key vision crystallized – to move from speaking about mental illness or recovery, to the more progressive, all-encompassing term, mental wellness. It was also important to emphasize their mission’s focus in the state of Texas, while being mindful of their strong awareness and influence nationally.

Through much research and group discussions, TREW developed the following mission and vision statements for the foundation:

Mission: The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health advances mental wellness of the people of Texas as an impactful grantmaker and catalyst for change

Although Starmount serves a completely different market place of retail Chief Information Officers (CIO) and Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) at large retailers such as Urban Outfitters or Home Depot, getting to their unique value proposition and company positioning followed a similar process: rolling up our sleeves, listening and asking many, many questions, to ultimately get to the Starmount heart.

Out of this process and a collective understanding of Starmount’s unique software products and services and very talented and experienced team of retail software developers, we were then able to develop the brain, including the following mission and vision statements:

For Alfamation, the TREW team sought to capture their passion and scientific knowledge for creating out-of-the-box products and services for design, test, and manufacturing engineers and managers in the automotive, consumer electronics, telecom, and medical industries. It was important for the mission, tagline, and logo to convey their innovative culture and present the company’s broad family of software and hardware products to customers globally. Through our same deliberative process, we developed their brain, including these elements:

Building off the core ”brain” elements, The Hogg Foundation and TREW created and prioritized organizational goals, core values, and made their branding elements visible at all touch points in the organization through activities that included:

Communications Brain used as messaging guide for primary company and product communication

Consistency and efficiency gains by using Brain vs. reinventing messaging with each new activity

Scalable and integrated mix of low- and high-cost media investments to generate demand

Once Alfamation’s core elements of the “brain” were developed, TREW integrated their branding across all marketing disciplines with a 12-month marketing plan, including:

Website re-design which resulted in 100% increase of pages viewed from previous site

Leveraging the company and product level positioning and messaging “brain” with the design and production of Alfamation’s booth at NI Week; developing their promotional strategy; and creating technical product brochures

Compelling email marketing campaign that extended their trade show success, and generated a response rate 2.6 times greater than the industry average

For all you video and film buffs out there, you’ll be happy to hear there is a new festival just for non-profit organizations – Lights. Camera. Help.

The submission process kicks off tonight with a press event at Southwest Key Community Center. For more about tonight’s kickoff event in Austin and how to submit your cause-related film or video, check out the details below or visit the festival Facebook page.

Representatives from the American Cancer Society, United Way Capital Area, the Capital Area Food Bank and Best Friends Animal Sanctuary will speak about the value of the films-for-a-cause genre, show a trailer for their films and then formally submit their films.

Congratulations to We Are One spokespeople, Narissa Adams, Communications Director for SafePlace, and Melanie Chasteen, Vice President for Marketing and Communications at Big Brothers Big Sisters, for their interview earlier this week on KTBC FOX News. As Narissa and Melanie point out, a gift of your time and resources to any nonprofit in Central Texas is a gift to all.

Hats off once again to these innovative nonprofits who show, through their collaboration and support of one another, how strong we can be as a community when we work together. How are you one? Become a We Are One fan on Facebook and use #wer1 on Twitter to share your story and inspire others.

We are proud to announce the launch of the We Are One campaign, the first pro bono project for TREW Marketing since its founding in 2008. With this campaign, Central Texas nonprofits came together to increase involvement and drive stronger support for Central Texas organizations and their many missions. The We Are One initiative took a great deal of collaboration among twelve of Austin’s largest nonprofits, and they speak as one voice in addressing important needs across the region, especially as the economy continues to decline.

Through web, video and online social media outreach – including Facebook and Twitter as well as with a new We Are One webpage – the grassroots effort calls on all citizens to share how they are one with Central Texas.

In recent months, requests for services among many Central Texas organizations have increased while funding has dropped. Therefore, We Are One is more than just an awareness campaign. It is a call-to-action that is simple and straightforward, inviting all Central Texans to volunteer time or provide financial support. By working together as one, all who are in need can reach their full potential and succeed.

From a marketing perspective, as with any project, we began by defining the goals for the campaign. Since the main deliverables of the campaign were two videos and the objective was grassroots awareness, social media was an obvious marketing channel to use.

The main elements of the online and social media campaign were:

• A primary campaign landing page at www.weareonecentraltexas.com where visitors can watch videos, learn more about the twelve organizations and how they are one together, and find ways to get involved

• A Facebook fan page where visitors can join the cause and share stories, photos, and videos of how they are one with Central Texas.

• A Twitter hashtag #wer1 where all can listen to and take part in the conversation

• A social media release, where media, bloggers, and other interested parties can get the facts; all types of content, including video, photos, social media links, and the full press release; and contact information for media as well as for each nonprofit

Please join us at TREW Marketing in congratulating these leading nonprofit organizations for serving as such a wonderful example of the power of collaboration. We were thrilled to be part of it, and hope more people in Central Texas will be inspired to join in being one with their community so all can succeed.

To learn more about the We Are One launch, and how you can get involved, please visit We Are One.

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